


Storybrooke

by fictorium



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-17 20:43:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5884519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictorium/pseuds/fictorium
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Revisiting s1 Swan Queen through the prism of a Pleasantville AU. What happens if Emma Swan is brought to Storybrooke through her television set instead of by car? A world that once was black and white bursts into colour, and somewhere in there a family finds each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [SQBB2016](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5360087) by [anursingdegreeinfeelings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anursingdegreeinfeelings/pseuds/anursingdegreeinfeelings). 



Confirmation of the client’s transfer pops up on Emma’s phone as she kicks her shoes off in the hallway. At least she doesn’t have to work in cash these days. It’s a long way from her first bail bonds gig, paid in torn and dirty Hamiltons that only just passed for legal tender. She manages to trip over the shoes on her way to the kitchen, adding insult to the injured toes that will just never be okay with getting rammed into overpriced stilettos.

Sniffing the bottle that is the fridge’s only occupant besides a cardboard takeout box, she takes a mouthful of surprisingly fresh apple juice and sighs in relief. She’ll get groceries tomorrow, for sure. Right after she picks up her next assignment and does some overdue laundry. She’d had to take tonight’s mark somewhere fancy because her only outfit choices left were a cocktail dress or a Wonder Woman onesie. She wishes they’d made it to the entrees before he flipped the table on her, though. Now she’s only got the cupcake she brought home for dinner.

The couch is littered with old client files and the rest of her laundry that hasn’t been bagged for the trip to the laundromat. Emma kicks enough things aside to make a space for herself before flopping down and grabbing the TV remote. She’s in the mood for some comforting reruns, hopefully the Golden Girls or at least the early seasons of Friends that she’s mostly forgotten by now. She flips past baseball, a bunch of channels reporting the same news and the usual white-guy-after-white-guy of late-night chat shows. Eventually she lands on something in black and white, and it’s so unexpected she stops her clickfest to see what it is.

There’s something familiar about the petite, dark-haired woman on screen. She’s dressed like a Sunday school teacher and holding a candle nearly as big as her head. The smile on her face makes Emma’s heart ache for a second, as the random television actress stares dreamily at the most conventionally handsome man Emma has ever seen, right down to his flannel shirt and twinkling eyes. Well good for them, she figures, ready to move on for some Seinfeld or whatever. She’s about to press the button when another woman enters the scene, dressed more severely in a black coat and shiny black heels. Well, Emma guesses they’re black. They’re darker than anything anyone else is wearing in the scene.

It’s enough to make Emma take the damn thing off mute.

“... my son,” the newest woman is saying. “If he tells me that you’ve been studying woodland creatures in class one more time, I’m going to report you to the principal, Miss Blanchard.”

“Oh, Mayor Mills!” The Blanchard woman’s dreamy smile is wiped away in an instant. The man moves closer to her, protective. Emma is already rooting against this drip. “Maine is so beautiful and we have such wonderful wildlife. I just want the children to appreciate the outdoors.”

“As Mayor I have provided plenty of outdoor space for children,” the Mayor continues, and Emma is thinking you tell them, lady. “The new playground opened just last month.” Okay, so it’s not exactly Dallas or Dynasty, but Emma’s kind of impressed that anything this old would have a lady mayor. When did TV switch into color anyway? Emma reluctantly hops the channels for a moment, but she finds herself keying in the 108 to go back to the black and white drama. It’s just the kind of genteel nonsense that will ease her into her birthday.

Only when she presses 8, the controller actually sparks and starts to smoke. Emma throws it across the room in panic, then has to retrieve it and drops it in the empty kitchen sink just in case anything else is going to happen.

She’s just sitting back down to her now-squashed cupcake, taking the first satisfying bite of vanilla frosting, when there’s a knock at her door. If it’s the crazy guy from downstairs telling her she’s walking too loud again, she might actually kill him this time. With his own broom, which he always feels the need to bring with him when he complains.

“Yeah?” She answers the door.

“Your cable remote is broken,” says the ancient old man in the hallway. He looks legit, cable company uniform and everything. “Right when you were in the middle of watching _Storybrooke_ , too.”

Storybrooke. Emma remembers the name now. One of her foster parents used to watch it religiously, the only hour in the week Emma could sneak a decent portion of food from the kitchen. She’d sit quietly and watch the first few minutes, sneak out to scarf down any leftovers she could take without it looking obvious, then be right back sitting on the den floor before the commercials. What she doesn’t get is why some guy has shown up without even being called, like a minute after the remote blew up on her.

“I was fixing the connector in 3B when your system sent an alert,” the man says, just like she’d asked him out loud. She notices a faded Italian in his accent. “If now’s a bad time, I can keep going and you can call them yourself. Gonna take about three days though.”

“Fine,” Emma sighs, checking his nametag - Marco - and leading him through the apartment only after snatching up her purse that contains her trusty Glock. If he’s up to something, he’ll be sorry he pulled it. “TV’s in there. The remote is in the sink.”

He walks straight up to the set and starts fiddling. The channels skip back to 108 almost right away, but the show is now on a commercial break for holidays to Florida. Emma watches carefully, but the old man seems genuinely set on fixing her TV problem. Only when he reaches for something in his toolkit does she twitch her fingers towards her purse and the weapon it conceals.

“Here,” he says. “A more powerful remote. This one won’t blow up on you.”

“That’s it?” Emma asks.

“Sure, it’s all tuned in. Here, I’ll switch it off to finish the reset, and you give it a try in two minutes, make sure all is well. If it doesn’t work, you lean out of the window and holler. I hear nothing? Back home I go.”

“Thanks. Do I owe you anything, or…?”

“Service charge on your monthly bill takes care of it,” Marco tells her. “You have fun now. And happy birthday.”

Okay, that was weird. But Emma figures if he has her account details, her date of birth is right there along with her name and address. He lets himself out and closes the door without any further creepiness, so Emma sits back down to her cupcake and tries to forget the strange interlude.

When the cupcake is gone, all she can feel is the oppressive emptiness of her apartment. By this point she hoped to have someone, even a roommate, who might stick around for a few months at a time. Someone to come home to, to remember to pick up milk because it was their turn. Hell, maybe it was time to start thinking about a pet. At least a cat would actually depend on her for some things.

To combat the silence, and the loudness of her own breathing, and heart beating, and the squeak of the leather sofa cushion under her mostly bare legs, Emma reaches for the replacement remote. Instead of the usual buttons it simply has a large red dial in the middle. She turns it to the first marked number clockwise, the 108 she seems to be looking for. The screen flares white for a second, and just as Emma is cursing the guy for making it worse instead of fixing it, she feels the world turn black.

 

* * *

 

When the light comes again, Emma is lying on her back on what is unmistakably a metal cot. The institutional sliver of padding in place of a mattress she knows is found in only one type of place. It’s only when she jolts upright that she realizes there’s something wrong with her eyes.

Everything is gray. Fifty freaking shades of it, and not a whip in sight. She looks at the pale gray walls and the dark gray, almost black metal bars that form the boundaries of her current prison. It’s when she looks at her own hands that it gets freaky. She rubs and pinches at the skin but it stays resolutely devoid of pink. Or peach. Or whatever pale-ass color she usually is, but it definitely shouldn’t be dove gray.

“You’re awake, then?”

“Uh, hi?” Emma stares at the man who’s just walked in, jingling a ring of keys and whistling out of tune. “Is there a reason I’m in here?”

“Driving drunk, right into the town sign,” he answers, not missing a beat. His voice is warm and smooth, like Irish whiskey. The accent definitely has notes of that, too. “You’re lucky you were on your way to see your parents, or I might have started the paperwork for actual charges. This way, you sleep it off and they’ll just think you arrived this morning.”

“Thanks?” Emma ventures. Whoever he thinks she is, whatever her addled mind has cooked up, it’s a world where she has parents. That’s not unheard of in her dreams, but it hits like a gut punch all the same. “How did you know-”

“Your parents are beloved in this town, Miss Nolan. You’ve been gone a while, but we all still know you. No doubt you forgot about us while you were traveling the world.”

“Right,” Emma sighs. “Sorry, about that. Officer…”

“Sheriff,” he corrects. “But Graham is still fine. Now that I’m letting you out. We’ll have that funny yellow car of yours towed this afternoon, once Leroy surfaces. He’s about the only one who had a rougher night than you.”

“Thanks.” Emma takes a deep breath when she steps out into the two-bit office that seems to comprise the whole Sheriff’s station. “So without my car, what’s the best way to get to my parents’ place…?” She’d better play along. Clearly whatever nightmare this is wants her to be a good girl with a homelife for a change. There might even be dream pancakes, and frankly she’s starving. She doesn’t remember ever feeling hungry in a dream before. Not even the ones where her bed turned into a giant waffle.

“Emma.” Graham looks at her like she’s lost her mind. “It’s four doors’ down.”

“Right!” She slaps her head, like suddenly this is a sitcom and the laugh track demands it. “You don’t need me to sign anything?”

“You were never here,” he insists, taking a seat at the desk on the far side of the office. “Go.”

Emma does, scurrying down the corridor and when she comes to the double doors leading to the street, that’s when she notices her strange outfit. She definitely came in from her fake bail-catching date in a deep pink cocktail dress, but in this strange, colorless place her brain has seen fit to put her in something the girls in Grease who weren’t Pink Ladies would have worn. The skirt is a lot, all on its own, the bodice stiff and pinched. It’s the most hideous floral pattern, but without colours it looks more like some bedding from IKEA. There’s a weird short cardigan, too. Emma hasn’t worn a cardigan since the third grade.

That’s not even the worst part. She looks down at her feet to see what look a lot like bowling shoes, topped off with white frilly ankle socks. Emma thinks she might hurl. She’s never done that in her dreams, either.

“Emma!” A dark-haired girl runs across the street to her, dodging some old-fashioned cars that look like they’ve barely seen 10mph. “Emma Nolan, I can’t believe you’re back in town and you haven’t come to see me yet! I should be your first stop!”

The weird thing is that Emma knows this girl’s name. She’d had a crush on the character when watching as a kid, not that she’d known it was a crush then. Somehow in this weird dream, the television show Storybrooke is as vivid as if Emma had watched it over and over again. Looking at the street she recognizes Granny’s Diner, the hardware store, French’s florist shop, a hundred memories rushing back to her at once. She’d never thought of them as being so real, but these are no cardboard sets on a Hollywood backlot.

“Ruby,” she tries the word out for size. She gets a beaming, toothy smile in response.

“Well, at least you didn’t forget me while you were living the life off in Boston! Your parents must be thrilled,” Ruby links arms with Emma and they move off down the sidewalk.

“Actually, I was just getting home,” Emma lies. “I had a little run in with the Sheriff.”

“Oh don’t mind Graham,” Ruby says, rolling her eyes. “But come see me at the diner when you’re done making peace with the parents. I’ll whip up a stack of pancakes like you’ve never seen, I swear.”

“Thanks, Ruby,” Emma offers a genuine smile. It’s kind of weird to be so welcomed, and she doesn’t dare get used to it in this electric-shock-fuelled dream. Pancakes sound really great, and her stomach actually rumbles a little in anticipation.

“Would you look at that?” Ruby says with a chuckle. “We were so busy gabbing, we almost went right past your house!”

“This is me,” Emma says uneasily. Maybe if she goes to find these mythical parents, she’ll wake up cold and alone. God knows that’s how enough of her dreams have ended over the years. “See you later. For pancakes.”

Ruby takes off across the street, and Emma freezes with her hand on the door knocker. Before she can decide whether to take the plunge, the door is thrown open and she almost falls into the house’s charming little entryway.

“Emma!” The handsome man in the plaid shirt yells, drawing the attention of half the street. “Mary Margaret, get down here! Emma’s back from Boston!”

He pulls her into a hug so quickly that Emma is entirely off-balance, but his broad shoulders and strong arms are more than capable of supporting her. He smells clean, like the woods and something else she can’t identify, but his clothes and skin are all just gradations of gray, just like Emma’s own.

“David, I told you to watch out for her car… Sweetheart!” Suddenly the hug is for three people, and Emma is being squeezed to the point of discomfort.

“So you’re my Mom and Dad, huh?” Emma gasps when they finally release her.

“Oh Emma,” Mary Margaret says with a hearty chuckle. “There you go again with your big city jokes. As if you could ever forget us.”

“You’re pleased to see me?” Emma can’t help asking. Surely this is what wakes her up. Surely this is how it all goes away.

“Do you even have to ask?” Mary Margaret grabs Emma for another bone-crushing hug. She’s pretty strong for a schoolteacher. She’s the schoolteacher who got scolded for the lessons about wildlife. “Ruby’s been asking for you, she said we should bring you right over for breakfast as soon as you got back-”

“I just saw her,” Emma interrupts. She’s not usually this consistent in dreams, not good at tying up loose threads and weaving a coherent story. Round about now is usually where any kind of plot gives way to monsters or her most embarrassing high school moments playing on a loop. “I could go for some pancakes, but don’t you both have to work?”

David points to the tie draped around his neck, unknotted.

“I don’t start until noon, and until my tie is tied and my badge is on my belt, I’m nobody’s deputy but yours, Emma Nolan.”

“Let’s go get those pancakes,” Mary Margaret urges, pushing them back out the front door. When she moves off without locking it, Emma can’t help but remind her.

“Oh the city really has made you cynical,” Mary Margaret teases. “We’ve never had to lock our doors in Storybrooke, and we don’t plan on starting now. Unless it would make you feel safer…?”

“I’m fine,” Emma assures her. What the hell does she really care about their fictional property?

The diner is like an honest-to-God malt shop, pulled right out of Happy Days. It’s still early, before school at least judging by the number of teens clustered around the tables, but a bunch of them clear a table for Mary Margaret and David. They don’t really look old enough to have a daughter Emma’s age, even in the messed-up world of television where every woman over 30 has a 20 year old kid. Here in the grayness she can see more wrinkles up close, the hint of silver streaks through Mary Margaret’s dark hair; they’d seemed more like college sweethearts the last time Emma remembered watching an episode.

“Well, well, well,” a woman says right as they sit down. She’s somewhere behind Emma, so she turns to see the attractive mayor she saw in the clip before passing out. “If it isn’t our criminal element, sitting down to breakfast.”

“Excuse me?” David challenges her. “Madam Mayor, we’re trying to have a family breakfast, and your interruptions are not needed.”

“David-” Mary Margaret warns. “If this is about the curriculum, Regina…”

“It’s about the prodigal daughter and her welcome home vandalism,” Regina corrects, her voice snappish as she steps around into Emma’s line of sight. “Or did you think you could smile at the Sheriff and avoid consequences? Those days are over, Miss Nolan.”

 _That’s not my name,_ Emma grits her teeth at losing the one thing she chose for herself. Her subconscious can’t find enough ways to kick her without that?

“Listen, lady,” she begins, but Mary Margaret reaches for her hand and squeezes it in warning. The contact is so warm, so real, that Emma short circuits. When was the last time someone touched her with such gentleness, such kindness? Trying to save her from trouble instead of lashing out at her, or hitting her back. “I’m just trying to have breakfast. If the Sheriff wants to arrest me, he should go right ahead.”

“Regina-” Graham protests, having clearly been lying in wait. “I’m not going to arrest my deputy’s daughter for a simple accident.”

“You’re on notice,” Regina warns, bending slightly to threaten Emma more directly. Her clothes look more modern than anyone else’s, the cut of the dress incredibly flattering, and the neckline definitely worth a second glance. “This is my town, and I don’t care who you’re related to, you will not ruin things here.”

She storms off, Graham at her heel like a kicked puppy.

“What’s her deal?” Emma asks, as Ruby winds her way over to them, bearing stacks of pancakes.

“Regina isn’t my biggest fan, Emma,” Mary Margaret explains, taking the plates from Ruby and placing one in front of Emma. “Surely you must remember that much.”

“I know she’s always giving you a hard time, but what did I do to piss her off?”

David and Mary Margaret exchange a look.

“There are things we don’t discuss in public.” That, right there, is where there should be a laugh track, Emma thinks.

“I’ll just shut up and eat my pancakes,” Emma tells them. Ruby brings her hot chocolate with cinnamon, without Emma having to ask. There are worse ways to kill some time.

 

* * *

 

She explores the house when breakfast is over, both “parents” having hugged her goodbye before heading to the elementary school and Sheriff’s station respectively. Emma marvels at the staircase first, the photos crowding the white wall, frames that match and just as many that don’t. She recognizes herself in those images, dressed strangely and happier than in the few photos she has at home. Always with a parent, or some other kid who looks happy to be around her. It’s torture, at first, but she can’t pull herself away.

Her bedroom is stunning in its simplicity, in its homeliness. There’s no color like she would expect - though it would probably lots of sickening pink, if Mary Margaret is anything like Emma imagines her to be. There’s a twin bed still littered with stuffed toys, a vanity with the little stool at everything over by the window, and even a rocking horse in the corner that Emma has clearly outgrown.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” comes that voice from behind her once more. Emma turns to see the mayor, a basket of apples over her arm. “Storybrooke does not need you around, changing things for the worse.”

“What is your problem?” Emma demands. She can’t believe her own brain is doing this to her. “You don’t like me, fine. But what does it matter if I’m just eating food and hanging out with my family?”

“Storybrooke isn’t built for change,” Regina warns. “Why don’t you take these apples as a snack for that long drive back to Boston? I’m sure your ugly little car will be all fixed up soon enough. It’ll save you the trouble of unpacking.”

“You just waltz into people’s homes?”

“Nobody locks their doors in Storybrooke,” Regina answers. “And I’m an elected official. I’m just keeping an eye on safety around here.”

“I’ll probably be gone any minute,” Emma says, though she’s starting to wish it wasn’t true. “But it’s got nothing to do with you, or your stupid fruit, so don’t go thinking you can boss people around.”

“Mom?” A boy’s voice calls out from downstairs. “Mom, I’m late for school!”

Regina freezes at the sound, only her eyes darting towards Emma in a panic. Interesting. She doesn’t want the kid and Emma to be in the same place. Emma’s seen that exact combination of guilt and panic on too many cheats and liars over the years. Skipping bail isn’t enough for these assholes, they have to start all over again and ruin new lives too. The past always catches up to them, though. Emma wonders just what this television character thinks she’s hiding.

“I’m coming, Henry,” Regina calls out, dumping the basket on the bedroom floor. “I told you to wait in the car!”

“Late to be starting his day,” Emma follows Regina out to the stairs.

“He had a doctor’s appointment,” Regina snaps. “Not that it’s any of your business.”

Emma sees Henry then, a pretty cute little moppet with little kid bangs and a gap in his teeth. He’s dressed way too formally for his age, but he seems pretty used to it, kicking his loafers at the bottom step and looking up at them.

“Mom, it’s her!”

“Henry!” Regina runs the last few stairs. “Get out in the car right now, young man. Didn’t Dr. Hopper just warn you about exactly this behavior?”

“Who am I?” Emma asks her as Henry jogs out, in a sulk. “Who does he think I am?”

“You’re nobody,” Regina reminds her, dark eyes furious. She storms out after her son and slams the door behind her. Emma listens to the echoes bouncing off the walls and tries desperately not to finish the thought about just who that kid would be, in the real world. His age, the way his nose turns up just slightly, even the sulky expression on his face.

No, she’s nobody, even in this made-up world. Emma closes her eyes and bangs her head back against the wall. It doesn’t wake her up, it merely hurts and knocks a photo from the wall. It bounces down the stairs like a sad game of hopscotch, and Emma steps over it in her hurry to get back out in the fresh air. She can’t stay much longer in her own mind’s version of messing with her. There has to be something that will do the trick.

 

* * *

 

 

The shop seems to call to her as she walks past, so on discovering that Storybrooke really just has the two streets to call the center of town, Emma makes a point to drop in on her way back from the pointless walk. It’s cool and dusty inside, just as gray as everywhere else, but on the counter sits an old-fashioned television set. It’s a real giant, the kind with a wooden case and a dial on front to change the channels. Emma can’t resist.

She clicks the knob and the screen slowly begins to warm up from a first small burst of white light.

“That isn’t going to work,” a man says, appearing from the doorway leading to the back of the store. “Not to take you back, dearie.”

“Why would a television take me back to Boston?” Emma asks, playing the innocent even as her spidey senses kick into overdrive. This, regardless of anything else going on, is definitely a shady character. “I just wanted to catch the news.”

“Still under the illusion that you’re making all this up?” The man mocks her with a little giggle. “No, no, Marco did his job. He got you here, and isn’t it lovely? All the gloomy gray you could ask for!”

“Okay, you’re crazy,” Emma decides, backing towards the door. “Maybe I’ll just hit the library until I wake up and you’re all just a bad dream.”

“It’s not a dream, Emma,” he tells her. “Look.”

She turns back towards the television - the only source of color in the room. What she sees is her own apartment: the discarded cupcake wrapper, her killer heels lying on the floor.

“How are you…”

“Magic, shall we say? This isn’t a television program. Well, it is, but not in the way you understand it. There’s no studio, no scripts as such. Just a bunch of “actors”, for lack of a better word, trapped here and acting out their sad little lives. I believe in your world it shows up on those screens. And you just treat it as background noise, never once noticing that it’s all too real.”

“Like I said: crazy.” Emma wishes her voice didn’t sound so shaky.

“If this is a dream, why can’t you wake up?” He comes around the counter then, leaning heavily on a slender black cane. “Why can’t you see in color like every other time? Why can you feel my breath on your cheek?” He leans too close for that last part, and Emma steps back into a defensive posture.

“Cut the crap,” she says. “Even if what you’re saying is true, how did I get here? I’m very much in the real world. Trust me, I know how much it sucks.”

“I see it’s made you a cynic, Miss Swan,” he uses her correct name. Emma tries not to freak out, of course her own mind knows that’s her real surname. “But look, here’s our friend Marco. Give him a little wave.”

Sure enough, the repair guy appears on screen, in full color and with a twinkle in his eye.

“I’m sorry to send you there,” he confesses, clutching his hand over his heart. “It was this or they’d take my boy from me. You’ve gotta do whatever it is Mr Gold wants, make everybody happy again. Okay? Then I’m sure they’ll let you come back.”

“This isn’t real!” Emma explodes then, barging past Gold and out into the street.

“You might want to have a word with young Henry about that,” Gold calls after her.

Emma looks down at the gray sidewalk and the gray road for a moment, something heavy settling in her chest. She won’t accept this, she doesn’t have to. She’s going to do exactly what she’s done any other time things have gotten weird: she’s going to run.

 

* * *

 

She runs even though the skirt rustles like too many paper bags, and the stupid flat shoes hurt almost instantly, way more than her trusty, beat-up Nikes. Emma shrugs off the twee cardigan and throws it in someone’s trash as she passes. The main street gives way to a park, then honest-to-God white picket fences. She can’t remember ever being anywhere like this little postcard of a town, and there’s no way she remembers enough of a television show from her childhood. She runs until her lungs burn and her back feels like elastic stretched too far, but when she looks at the surroundings she’s right back on a picket-fence street that’s almost certainly the first one she started on. Mifflin Street. She runs the length of it and turns the corner. A few hundred yards later and she’s back on Mifflin. Changing direction never seems to take her any further. It’s this strange loop, or back into Storybrooke town.

“Hey,” says a young voice from behind a hedge. “You just discovered the loop, huh?”

“Isn’t this the road out of town?” Emma gasps. She has to find her car. Or hotwire another one.

“You would think.” It’s Henry. The Mayor’s son. He hands her a tumbler of clear brown liquid. “That’s my mom’s cider. You look pretty thirsty.”

Emma drinks it down in one swallow, parched beyond belief. She hands the glass back and sheepishly wipes her lips with the back of her hand.

“You know Mr. Gold? With the creepy shop?”

“I know everyone in this town, Emma. We all know each other. How many regulars do you think they can cram into one show? They can’t just keep adding pointless guest stars, the audience will get bored.”

“You talk a big game for a little guy.” Emma wonders what the hell this is supposed to mean.

“I’m not scripted,” Henry explains, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “I bet you’re not either, since you haven’t been here this whole time. We can talk without worrying about it going out on the screen.”

“Right,” Emma answers, not quite managing to stop herself rolling her eyes. “Thanks for the drink, kid. I’ve got to find a way out of this town and hopefully wake myself up.”

“Oh that’s easy,” Henry says, as if she’s been stupid not to ask before now. “If you want to wake up in the real world, you just go to sleep in your dream. Everyone knows that.”

Emma reaches out and ruffles his hair. He would be just the right age, and there’s something in the tilt of his head and the scrunch of his nose that reminds her of Neal. It’s pure projection, she knows. Her mind is so predictable she could vomit.

“Good idea, kid,” Emma tells him. “In fact, I’m feeling pretty beat. I think it’s time I took a nap.”

“We have a guestroom,” Henry says, nodding towards the big white house.

“No thanks,” Emma replies, not willing to risk another yelling match. “I’ve got my own bed, in my own room. And it’s only a few minutes from here.” She doesn’t dwell on how long she’s wanted to say those words and have them be true.

 

* * *

 

 

She stares at the ceiling for the second consecutive hour. Emma’s tried everything short of slamming her head against the wall until she passes out, but sleep is elusive. She’s always been able to nap at any given opportunity, but that power is lost to her now. Just as she thinks she might be drifting off, she hears someone knocking on the front door.

Dragging herself downstairs, Emma finds a short, bearded man whose scowl is as ingrained as the dirt and grease on his hands. He throws her car keys at her and gestures towards her Bug. Except it’s not quite the same car, definitely an older model. Emma can see her own personal touches: the duct tape on the passenger door, the takeout debris and abandoned clothes in the backseat, but there’s no denying the car is a different shape and style.

“Which is the road out of town?” She asks him, wondering why he hasn’t spoken to her or demanded any money for returning the car.

“Why?” He grunts. “Nobody leaves Storybrooke.”

“Apparently I already did,” Emma clings to her stupid narrative. “Otherwise how could I come back and crash this car into the town sign?”

“Beats me,” he answers with a shrug. “The Sheriff took care of the tow costs, so you can go ahead and bail if you want, sister. We’ll be just fine either way.”

“So you don’t think I’m here to free you all from television?”

He looks at her with the baffled contempt a question like that deserves. Emma resists the urge to slap herself. She’s getting way too caught up in her own delusions.

“Sure,” he relents after a moment. “I heard those stories, same as everyone else. You’ve been the talk of the Rabbit Hole for years. But we’re not going anywhere, so what’s the point in getting our hopes up? Hope is for suckers.”

“Good pep talk,” Emma thanks him with a mocking little salute. “I think I’ll just get on with leaving town now.”

“Suit yourself. All roads lead back to Storybrooke though. Been that way as long as anyone can remember.” The words have a robotic quality, as though he’s not choosing to say them. As though he’s said them too many times before to feel them.

She pushes past the grumpy man and lets herself into the strange but familiar car. It starts up just the same, the engine choking a little until she teases the clutch just right. She slams it into gear and pulls away from the curb, eyes on the horizon and hopefully plenty of gas in the tank.

The Bug handles as jerkily as ever, resisting her right turns harder than lefts, but the engine opens up when she finds a straight and empty road that has to be her way out. Emma closes her eyes for just a second, and when she opens again the car is sailing past the big white house with its _fucking_ white-picket fence. The kid is on the porch now, reading something as he rocks idly back and forth on an old-fashioned wooden swing.

Emma brakes hard, and the screech is almost satisfying. She slams the door and marches across the front yard of what is apparently number 108 Mifflin Street and stands in front of the boy until he looks up from his book.

“This isn’t real,” she protests one more time, chest heaving with how angry she is. She wants to scream. Or kick something. Maybe the posts holding up this porch will do.

“I know, Emma,” he sighs. “That’s exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you.”


	2. Regina

“What was she doing here, Henry?” Regina has abandoned the Mercedes halfway along the drive, too intent on getting to her son. He ignores her, flipping pages and swinging his feet beneath the swing. Regina pinches her nose. This behavior shows little sign of improving, and the emotional bruises are taking too long to heal. Only the memories of her own mother’s cruelty keep her persisting with the indulgent approach to Henry’s hostility. “Henry?”

“She’s the Savior, Mom,” Henry blurts after an endless minute. “It’s in these old scripts.”

“I told you I would burn those if you didn’t put them down, Henry,” Regina warns.

“I’m twelve years old,” he reminds her. “I can read almost anything I want. And burning books isn’t good for the Mayor’s image, is it?”

“It’s not a book,” Regina counters. “And you know as well as I do sweetheart, that this town could be talked into a good bonfire if we got them riled up about Communists.”

“I wish we had normal conversations.” Henry sighs, and stretches after stuffing the sheets in his backpack. “Is it lasagna for dinner tonight?”

“If you want,” Regina calculates whether there’s one in the freezer she can resuscitate and decides there probably is. “I know you hate me sometimes, Henry.” She wishes he wouldn’t glare in a way that plainly answers ‘all the time’, but persists. “But don’t pin your hopes on some blonde stranger changing things around here. This is our life, and I happen to love it. Just like I love you.”

“I don’t believe you,” he snaps, throwing the backpack over one shoulder and storming towards the front door. He doesn’t slam it behind him for once, and Regina listens to his squeaky school shoes running up the stairs.

Emma _Swan_ showing up in Storybrooke is an unacceptable development. Regina is going to have to do something about it.

* * *

 

“I’m popular today,” Gold drawls from where he’s leaning on the counter. “Why, not an hour ago the Nolan girl came by to see me.”

“Don’t call her that,” Regina snaps. “I suspected for some time you’ve been more aware than you should be. Very underhand of you, imp.”

“The conditions were written into your curse, your Majesty,” he replies, voice pitching a little higher. “Am I to blame if you didn’t read the small print? Squid ink is a tricky thing.”

“How did you bring her here?”

“That would be telling,” Gold singsongs back at her. “We should be careful, Regina. Original cast members can’t go talking out of turn.”

“You won’t get away with this,” Regina warns, striding back across the dusty store to make her exit. “My curse will hold, and Storybrooke will prevail.”

“It’s been a while since I saw the Evil Queen in you,” he remarks, looking her up and down in a way that makes Regina shudder, hopefully imperceptibly. “I think I prefer Mayor Mills.”

“Go to hell.”

“Some would say we’re already there.”

 

* * *

 

 

Graham bends to her will as easily as ever, still dazzled by the rules of the curse. He stares blankly as Regina falls into her role, demanding her uphold the laws of the town and teach their newcomer a lesson.

“Arrest her,” she spits, and eventually he’s spurred into action. He gathers his handcuffs, and pleasingly his service weapon, and trudges out towards the car. For a moment Regina toys with the idea of following him, but she doesn’t have to savor every victory firsthand these days. With a final look around the station, she turns back to her car and decides to pick up some things for making Henry’s lasagna from scratch. It’ll ease him through this little disappointment.

 

She’s expecting Graham to show up after dinner, seeking some hard cider and maybe something more. It would make an appropriate, if depressingly routine celebration of neutralizing the latest threat.

The mechanical growl of a chainsaw is the last thing Regina wants to hear. By the time she puts her glass down and runs into the garden, her beloved apple tree is already missing a once sturdy branch. Not only that, but the interloper has thrown off the period appropriate dress code of Storybrooke and is wearing what appears to be a tank top with jeans. Regina can tolerate many things, well maybe one or two things, but messing with her aesthetic is not even close to being one of them.

“What the _hell_ do you think you’re doing?” The words come out disjointed as she sprints across the law.

“A shoddy frame job?” Emma shouts back. “I’m offended.”

“Who shows up late at night with power tools?” Regina snarks right back. “Are you out of your mind?”

“No, but apparently I’m stuck here,” Emma bites back, lowering the chainsaw. Regina tries not to notice how Emma’s biceps flex and relax with the simple action. “And when somebody pisses me off? I get even, lady.”

As Emma starts to stride away, Regina fumbles for another insult. The words die on her tongue as she sees it happen, the sudden pooling of color in the center of Emma’s back, bursting forth like a silent wave and banishing the gray from every inch of her. Emma stops as though splashed with icy water, gasping at her own body. The chainsaw falls to the ground, forgotten.

“No…” Regina whispers, her voice fading into the night air. She looks up, instinctively, to Henry’s bedroom window. He’s there, eyes alight with glee, trained on Emma’s newly-colorful form.

“Look at that.” Emma turns back to her, arms raised at her sides as though in challenge. “Guess the times are changing after all, Madam Mayor.”

Regina has never missed her magic more keenly than in that moment. Emma walks away without a fireball chasing her down, and in that moment it feels like one hell of a missed opportunity.

 

* * *

 

 

Regina reaches the hospital room just as the baby’s screams pierce the air. She watches from the door in horror, pulling the belt of her trenchcoat tight around her waist, tight enough to catch her breath like her corsets of old did. Ella takes the baby with trembling hands, and even though she’s as exhausted as anyone could be in that moment, she floods with color on the first look at her child’s face.

“Enough,” Regina vows, mostly to herself. The only one who looks up is Dr. Whale, sweaty and looking faintly nauseated.

“Madam Mayor,” he says, looking to Ella and then back to her. “I don’t know how to explain-”

“Quiet!” She snaps, turning on her heel and striding back towards the hospital reception. She’s going to have to try harder to get rid of the Swan girl.

 

* * *

 

 

The explosion at the mine shouldn’t be much of a shock, Storybooke has already lived through that exact local disaster three times in what Regina can only assume is the curse’s attempt at a ratings grab. She doesn’t rush to the scene until she overhears Emma’s voice in the background of Graham’s call, and she should realize something bigger is amiss when he deliberately avoids her.

“You’re not needed here,” Regina barks, ducking under the police tape in pursuit of Graham.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Emma answers, jutting her hips forward proudly.

There’s a smaller version of Graham’s star there, silver and just a little tarnished. Of course it glints in the light, all the bolder for being against the black pants that cling to Emma’s shapely legs. Others are watching them at a safe distance, the word of Emma’s colourful transformation having been the talk of the town all day. Regina’s had to field enquiries from the hospital, the nunnery, and Granny on a particularly nosy mission, reassuring them that the sudden presence of color is nothing to fear, and that things in Storybrooke will soon return to normal.

“Deputy?” Regina snarls. Graham will pay for this one. She’ll find a way to hurt him, and have it stick. This insubordination will not be tolerated, no matter what weaknesses Gold—no, Rumplestiltskin—has built into the curse. “We’ll see how long that lasts. Get this crowd moved back. This location is not safe for citizens to come gawping.”

Emma deflates a little at the menial task, but she has the sense to do as she’s told this time. Regina has been taking reports from Sidney all day, of who Emma speaks to and flirts with, everywhere she visits and everything she sees. So far she’s done nothing more scandalous than be civil to most people she encounters and eat far too much junk food, but there’s little Regina can do about that. The thought of suggesting to Granny who she can and can’t serve at the diner isn’t worth the headache it would surely cause.

“Madam Mayor,” Graham grunts in acknowledgment when she finally catches up to him by the mine’s blocked entrance, a few of the rocks that form the blockade now scattered to the ground at their feet.

“Appointing deputies without approval was a bad idea,” Regina threatens, stepping in close enough to make him flinch. She can’t remember when it stopped bothering her that even in a clueless waking coma, he never entirely lost his revulsion for her touch. “See that you get this mine secured, immediately.”

“Look.” He looks wonderstruck for a moment, pointing to a gap in the rocks. Out of it seeps pure color, a stream that stains the gray rocks the terracotta shade they ought to be.

Regina closes her eyes, once again pinching the bridge of her nose to stave off a surging and sudden headache.

“Brick that up.” She barks the order and heads for her car. All she wants right now is her son, his cold shoulder still comfort enough for what is beginning to feel like the end of the world.

 

* * *

 

 

“I’ve decided,” Rumple is waiting by her injured apple tree, appraising the damage for himself. “This breaking now, like this. It’s bad for my long-term plans. This has to stay alive a little longer.”

“Finally you see sense,” Regina sighs. “What do you want me to do?”

 

* * *

 

 

The knock is uncertain and comes far too late at night, but Regina throws the front door open anyway, and tells herself the overuse of strength has nothing to do with the peaty single malt she’s been drowning her sorrows in, nor the magic she cannot summon in this world.

“Why is this happening to me?” Emma demands, her hair mussed and a faint swelling around her eye that says she’s been in some kind of altercation. “I thought the color coming back meant I was waking up. Is this a coma? Or are you a witch like Henry says?”

“Don’t talk about my son.”

“Is he mine?” Emma pleads, falling to her knees on the porch. “He’s the right age, and I never could find any trace of him in the system after I gave him up.”

Regina has been trying so desperately not to connect those last dots, resisting the urge to grab Rumple by the throat and ask just how far back his plotting extends. Asking him to find her the child had been a mistake, that’s a fact as plain as day now. She might as well have trusted the devil himself.

“Even if that’s true,” she sighs. “You have no right to him. He came here, and he’s part of it like everyone else. I have been all the mother he needs.”

“That’s not really true, is it, Mom?” Henry says from behind her, swaying on the steps with the fresh exhaustion of the prematurely wakened. “Is Emma my real mom? The scripts don’t say.”

“I don’t know,” Regina lies, one more time. Emma scrambles to her feet, peering at Henry through the open door as he stands at the foot of the staircase. She smiles at him, and he smiles back. Regina sobs through the recognition of matching chins, of heads that tilt instinctively to the exact same angle. The tears stop her from noticing right away that the color sweeps over Henry, his Hulk pajamas newly vibrant, freshly green.

It’s all she can do to push Emma back out into the night and slam the door closed. Regina presses her back to it, slipping down until she’s sitting on the marble floor, hugging her own knees. Henry watches her, cautious and curious as ever. It looks as though he’ll return to bed, armed with this new knowledge that will destroy them.

Instead he crosses the lobby with his wolf slippers, shushing softly against the cold, hard floor. He pats her awkwardly on the shoulder, the warmth of his little hands enough to scald through the silk of her blouse.

“It’ll be okay, mom,” Henry promises, all the faith of a true believer. “If she’s bringing everyone’s happy endings, that has to mean yours too.”

“You’re my happy ending, Henry,” she pulls him close, a hug that draws him down into her lap and he allows it. He’s getting too heavy for this, but Regina can’t find it in her to feel any more crushed. “I just wish that didn’t mean it had to end.”

 

* * *

 

 

“If you stay home,” she tells him over cereal. “And let me deal with some town business today, I’ll invite Emma over for dinner so you can get to know her better.”

“Thanks, Mom,” he answers in all sincerity, his resurgent trust in her a fragile stem of the first flower after the frost. She’s already sorry that she’ll have crushed it beneath her heel in a few hours’ time.

 

* * *

 

 

“This room is our ground zero,” Regina explains. “Bring everyone afflicted with the disease here. Don’t tell them anything’s wrong, Graham. Lie, bribe them, tell them it’s a surprise party for all I care.”

“Madam Mayor,” he extends his forearm, where a small blemish of peachy skin tone is spreading slowly above his wristwatch.

“Do this for me,” she orders. “It’s the only way to save you all, through containment.”

He leaves with confident strides, a faithful hound with a mission to search and retrieve. Regina calls the sitter three times in the next hour, making sure Henry is safe within the bounds of the house. Her last call is placed— after Graham returns leading a group of twelve, which is far more than she expected— to Rumple at his depressing little shop.

“I locked the afflicted in the Sheriff’s station like you suggested,” she delegates as effortlessly as though it were just another budget item. Like the room she’s trapping them all in isn’t just moments from her own office, confined in the bureaucratic safety net of the Town Hall. “Does that mean I no longer owe you a favor?”

“Well I did say ‘please’,” he replies, disingenuous as ever. She listens to the footsteps in the hallway and watches for his distinctive shadow to pass her door, his cane beating an irregular rhythm as he goes. It’s only when the fire alarm sounds that she thinks to try her office door.

It’s locked, with no sign of a key. Her windows present the same problem, and remain impervious to everything she throws at them. That shouldn’t be part of the curse, and she sees now that the interference goes far beyond what her spying could tell her.

The smoke seeps in beneath the door, through the vents. She rattles the door one last time, thinking of Henry as hard as she knows how and hoping for that adrenalin strength they say comes to mothers who need to lift a car off their child.

It doesn’t work, and she has to accept that this is one last time she’s going to fail him. She hasn’t tested for years whether people can die in this cursed reality, but she suspects her previous findings are obliterated by this shift in the power balance of the new world.

When the wood around the lock splinters, Regina doesn’t recognize what’s happening, only the damage registers in the most superficial way. Before she can get angered about the repairs that will now be needed, Emma Swan is dragging her up from where she’s been coughing on the floor, carrying her out over debris in the smoky hallway and bursting forth into the relative safety of the parking lot.

“Someone tried to kill us,” Emma rasps, before dissolving into a coughing fit of her own. “When I saw,” she chokes on the words for a long moment. “When I saw you weren’t out here yelling, I knew you had to be inside.”

“You came back especially for me?” Regina asks, incredulous. “Did you get the others out?”

“I think it was some kind of anti-color thing Graham got into his head,” Emma admits, her eyes filling with angry tears. “He had some on his arm, I think he flipped.”

“Where is he?” Regina demands.

“The uh, fire got him first,” Emma explains, staring at the ground. “I never want to see anything like that again.”

“Neither do I,” Regina agrees, terrified by how sincerely she means it.

 

* * *

 

 

She invites Emma to dinner once the paramedics clear them, because this is no time to start breaking her promises to Henry. Something shimmers over the foolish candles she lights to decorate the dinner table, a ghost or a whisper of something, suggesting a second chance.

Regina doesn’t believe in second chances, but it occurs to her she didn’t believe in the first ones much either. What’s a chance really worth when the choices are preordained, manipulated by magic, by Dark wizards, by a mother whose love bruised where it should have comforted?

They’re clearing the plates, Emma insisting on helping despite the fact that she seems more likely to break the china than clean it. Regina reaches for a glass to load into the dishwasher, and her fingers brush Emma’s bare forearm instead. She’s still dressing like an anachronism, wearing her strangeness like armor against Regina’s world.

“Oh,” Emma sighs. “There’s so much contact here.”

“Your parents?”

“Yeah,” Emma admits. “I should be really mad at you if you really are the one who stole them away from me.”

“I can accept that,” Regina decides, rubbing her fingertips absently before looking down in horror to see her palms gradually soaking with color. She hasn’t seen her true skin, the gentle olive tones she inherited from her father, in 28 years. As the hue deepens, she can feel his hand engulfing hers, squeezing gently to tell her she’s safe.

 _Mija_. She could swear she hears it over the hum of the fridge and the soft sound of Emma’s breathing right beside her. _Corazón_ the distant voice calls to her, both comfort and reprimand for what she stole to make this suspended sleep of a life possible, a glass coffin of her own where she can walk and talk and control all the others.

“According to Henry though, they’re the ones who sent me away,” Emma continues. “And Mary Margaret can’t cook like you can.”

“Snow,” Regina corrects, and she grits her teeth at the acknowledgment. Whatever it does is enough to halt the spread of color at her stubbornly gray wrist. “I suppose it’s time I told you my side of the story.”

 

* * *

 

 

By three in the morning the story is told, the Scotch bottle empty and Henry sleeping soundly on the couch opposite. Emma has exhausted herself of questions, of tears, of energy and possibly of hope. Regina smooths the cushion that sits on her lap and considers how this came to be. The couch has regained some color, the carpet too. Henry sleeps on, tonight’s pajamas a deep blue that only reminds her of the ocean, and making bargains with stupid mermaids.

“I should go,” Emma announces. “That was a lot and I don’t trust myself right now.”

“Go,” Regina agrees. “Try not to destroy anything else today while you’re mulling it over.”

“I don’t think the rest is up to me.”

Regina watches Emma stumble towards the door, thinks of reminding her not to drive, and then thinks better of it. At this point in their twisted story, there’s no longer much point fighting all the things they can’t control.

 

* * *

 

 

With her office part of a crime scene, the smell of smoke too sickening to contemplate, Regina decides to hold court at Granny’s. There’s a mob gathering somewhere, she can sense it, but more and more people who pass through for drinks and snacks have turned to color, and they’re starting to seem a little giddy about it despite the town’s mutterings.

Snow and David remain resolutely gray, and Regina takes some solace in that. It isn’t over as long as the target of all her hate is still secure in the curse’s hold. She has to reach for the feeling of satisfaction this time, and when she unearths it, the sensation of having won barely registers anymore.

Regina sets out in search of Emma. When she reaches the grounds of the town hall, she finds Emma beginning an equally intent search for her. There’s no Henry to use as a buffer today. He’s at school, under the watchful eye of his grandmother again after her lunchtime trip to Granny’s.

“Hey,” Emma murmurs, looking at Regina as though she’s found a map that finally leads her out of this construct. “Gold tells me you set the fire.”

“I didn’t,” Regina corrects. “But I was complicit. Have you come to arrest me?”

“I could…” Emma admits, squinting into the sun. The increasingly yellow sun that’s beating down on lawns that pool in emerald green around Emma’s feet. The building behind her lights up in lemon, the American flag above the doors suddenly resplendent in red, white, and blue. Regina understands the anthem of her strange, adopted land. She imagines the rockets bursting on the 4th of July, closing her eyes for just a moment’s resistance to reality.

“Emma,” she says, reaching blindly for something. Emma provides it, her hands taking Regina’s as she reopens her eyes. The touch is a bolt of lightning, stronger than any magic that Regina has ever wielded. She feels, more than sees, her color roaring across her skin. It sinks into her even as it splashes out onto the ground beneath her. Storybrooke is flourishing, but there’s a terrible rumble beneath the ground. She knows that time is limited, and that whatever she creates in this moment can only ever be destroyed.

“You’re beautiful,” Emma gasps. Regina looks down at herself, for the first time in too long she has to agree. “What happens now?” Emma asks, pulling Regina closer; close enough to kiss.

“I don’t know,” Regina confesses. She never asked what the breaking of her curse would look like. Asking felt too much like accepting that even this respite would be temporary. “What do you think happens now?”

“I think we find the road that goes all the way out of Storybrooke,” Emma confides, pressing her forehead against Regina’s. “You, me, Henry, and whichever car survives this flood.”

“Kiss me,” Regina whispers. If this is the final battle, she can at least control the fatal blow.

Emma presses her lips sweetly against Regina’s, the even pressure is a door slamming shut on almost four decades of rage, of despair, of frustration and fear in equal measure. The crack that resounds in the air around them certainly sounds like one world colliding with another. Regina ignores it, ignores the shouts and the chaos, and kisses Emma back with everything she has, grasping hands tangling in those gorgeous blonde curls.

“Henry,” Regina gasps when their moment finally ends. She’s whole again. She’s almost complete, but not without her son. “I should be with him, just in case…”

They run, hand-in-hand, the short distance towards the school. Henry is running down the street towards them and it’s so easy to scoop him up in their combined embrace. He wriggles after a moment, searching their faces for answers.

“Where are we going?” He asks, as the cobbles in the street start to separate, spilling across the sidewalks as water mains erupt and lights inside the buildings begin to blink out, block by block.

“Hopefully nowhere horrible,” Regina answers through gritted teeth, holding one of Henry’s hands and one of Emma’s as though her life depends on it; it occurs to her that for the first time, it actually might.

 

* * *

 

 

Emma wakes up on her couch, blinking at the ceiling until her ears stop ringing and she can trust her stomach to sit up.

The cupcake wrapper is lying there beside her, her shoes are kicked off on the floor where she left them. She looks at the television, blank-screened with just the red glow of the standby light to mock her. The color is so bright it makes her eyes sting, and the tears streaming down her cheeks start before she knows what’s happening.

“No!” She yells, hurling the remote at the piece of junk. The screen cracks, not as loud as the one when she kissed Regina, and the glass doesn’t even shatter in a satisfying way. She’s about to follow up with a few punches or kicks, but there’s a frantic knocking at her front door. If it’s Marco, she’s going to strangle the old bastard with her bare hands.

“Emma!” Henry greets her with a running hug, dragging her halfway back into the apartment before she can even register that Regina is there too. Dressed for the right decade, and a sight for sore eyes in dazzling red. Her lipstick matches, and the moment Henry lets go Emma is claiming her second kiss.

“How are you here?” Emma blurts as she clings to Regina, swaying slightly with the intensity of her own need. “How?”

“Once there was a road out, this is where it brought us,” is all Regina will say. “I hope it’s okay that we came?”

“Trust me,” Emma replies. “It is so much better than okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> With the exception of a collaborative thing later in the year, this is my last writing for Swan Queen. Thank you all so much for kind words and encouragement over the past few years.
> 
> This is also the fic that closes the fourth and final Swan Queen Big Bang. That has been a singular joy, and as a co-mod I want to extend my personal thanks to each and every participant in all rounds. You have been simply magnificent, and a joy to know.


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